Never Quite Enough Time

  We have been keeping an eye open as to what is on the market motorhome wise.     Retirement travel plans start, but do not end, with exploring France.     A new Motorhome is well outside our price range and buying any motor vehicle new would be something of a departure from the norm for us. We have also been watching a fair number of motorhome adventurers on YouTube to get a bit more of a feel for what we might like and where we want to go with it. We have limited experience but are not completely at a standing start.    We had one of our own for a year about 10-15 years ago.    Long story.    It was bought for a specific purpose but we managed to get a couple of weeks travelling in France in it ourselves and were a little surprised at how much we enjoyed it.    Given our particular circumstances we really could not justify keeping it, at that time, so it had to go but we hired one the following year for another couple o...

  I am now a good six months into this blog as well as half way through 2026.     The purpose of the blog, in between general ramblings, is supposed to be keeping me on track as regards preparing for retirement.     That is all the stuff other than financial.       That is working away in the background and will be ok albeit things might well be better if various politicians stopped giving the markets the jitters. I could, however, do without constant increasingly upward projections in the press as to what is needed for a basic/moderate/comfortable retirement.    Some of these figures are considerably more than many, people earn so it seems unlikely they are going to suddenly materialise in retirement for the majority. Anyway, leaving that rant to one side, back to my actual point.    The idea of leaving the office at 5.00pm on my last Friday pausing briefly to collect a case of Provençal rose and another of old world red from ...

  It is a wee bit warm and I find myself getting up earlier than I would usually.     The pots in the garden, at the very least, need watering and if it is not all going to evaporate that should be done either early or late.       So I find myself wandering round the garden trying to stop plants from drying out too much and dying on me. The odd weed gets pulled out and squash, trombochino and beans are encouraged to climb up supports.    Courgettes, new potatoes, french beans, broad beans, lettuces, carrots, strawberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries, summer savory, oregano and 3 raspberries have been picked. A colander (varying sizes) each of the blackcurrants and gooseberries have been topped and tailed for the freezer, the savory and oregano have been dried in the dehydrator and jarred up for use whenever, everything else has been eaten.    Strawberries aside, which are definitely slowing down, it looks like it will keep on coming now ...

The press has been full of articles about a heatwave this week and a red health warning has been issued talking about risk of death.     Concerns about the temperature not falling below 25C at night and difficulty sleeping have abounded.     El Niño and climate change are the conversation topics du jour.     You just know the water companies will be planning hose pipe bans. S washed the car after work yesterday evening.    Not longer after the rain sensors were closing the roof lights and I was running around dodging rain drops and collecting in the outdoor seat cushions.    We can blame S for triggering rain by washing the car then! This not being quite enough to have me disbelieving the weather forecast at 6.30am and driving down to the office, I had already pulled on a sweater that I had not expected to go beyond being draped over my shoulders in the office aircon.    S had just commented he wished he had brought a coat when...